Police are investigating a complaint of “disproportionate” use of force after officers placed a bag described as a ‘spit guard’ on the head of a young man as he was restrained at a London train station. British Transport Police arrested a man on Friday, July 22, after intervening in an argument with a woman, it said.

A video of the incident has been shared widely on Twitter and Facebook, showing the man being held to the ground and surrounded by at least five officers, as an agitated woman claiming to be his girlfriend says that he was “having an argument with his girlfriend”.“He’s a young black boy. He’s having an argument with his fucking girlfriend. That is is it. I am his girlfriend. If you have an argument with your girlfriend is that what happens?,” she says to the camera.

The Twitter user who posted the video suggest the police were using a “muzzle-like bag”. British Transport Police explained a spit guard had been placed on the man’s head after he threatened to spit at officers. A Facebook user, Ayda Mosharraf, says she captured the video and reported on the site how the treatment was “choking to see” and questioned “such heavy police force”.

She later adds to the post quoting who she says was the man and the woman involved, suggesting they had a “little argument” and there was no “shouting and screaming”.

British Transport Police said the man had become “aggressive towards the officers”, and accepted a caution after he was arrested.

I really do not see anything wrong with this, video on the link and for two reasons.

One he accepted a caution at the time.They had him restrained, it was more the grlfriend in distress.Second, when I did some security work many years ago in Clapham Sainsbury, we had to always hold down this consistant theif with Hepatitis b and keep his mouth away from biting any of us, as he mangaed to bite my work buddy the first time we had to deal with this.